An IHOP magnate thinks activists planted human bones to stop him from developing land in New York — and he hired a spy to ferret them out

An IHOP magnate hired a spy to infiltrate the activists trying to stop him from developing land that may contain the bodies of Revolutionary War soldiers.

• A years-long battle has been brewing between a group of activists and a land developer in upstate New York.
• The land owner even hired a spy to infiltrate the activist's group, according to Curbed. 
• The activists say the plot of land contains the bodies of hundreds of Revolutionary War soldiers. 

An IHOP magnate hired a spy to infiltrate a group of activists who for years have been trying to stop him from developing land that may contain the bodies of Revolutionary War soldiers. 

And he claims to have evidence that the activists planted at least some of the bodies, according to a story in Curbed. 

Domenic Broccoli owns the plot of land in Fishkill, New York, along with a number of IHOP restaurants in the state.

He wants to build a Colonial-themed strip mall and IHOP on the site, Curbed reported. 

But a group of activists, Friends of the Fishkill Supply Depot, has tried to stop that development for over a decade — because they believe that hundreds of Revolutionary War soldiers are buried on the site, according to Curbed. 

Whether or not the plot, which was the site of a massive Revolutionary War supply depot, actually contains any solders' bodies is highly contested. Bone fragments were discovered on the site in 2007, but it's never been confirmed if they belonged to a soldier.

A later archeological survey found hundreds of underground anomalies consistent with buried bodies, but, according to Curbed, further digging found many of those anomalies to be rock, tree stumps, and rodent burrows — i.e. not graves.

"They came up with this little scam, if you want to call it," Broccoli said in a 2019 interview shared on the development's Facebook page.

Broccoli has resorted to extreme measures to thwart the activists, like hiring spies to sneak into their organization, Curbed reported. 

Broccoli says that a private investigator he hired to infiltrate on the group secretly recorded a conversation in which one of the activists asked another, according to the outlet, "Were you there when we buried … we buried the bones by the foundation?" 

That remark, Broccoli told Curbed, proves that the activists planted the bones themselves.

The Friends of the Fishkill Supply Depot and Broccoli did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.